title: The German version of the Material Values Scale.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The Material Values Scale is an instrument to assess beliefs about the importance to own material things. This instrument originally consists of the three subscales: 'centrality', 'success', and 'happiness'. The present study investigated the psychometric properties of the German version of the MVS (G-MVS).
  
  
  METHODS
  A population-based sample of 2,295 adult Germans completed the questionnaire in order to investigate the factorial structure. To test construct validity, additional samples were gathered among patients with compulsive buying (N=52) and medical students (N=347) who also answered the Compulsive Buying Scale (CBS) and the Patient Health Questionnaire depression scale (PHQ-8).
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the German population-based sample we could not confirm the 3-factor model but rather suggest a 2-factor solution with a first collapsed factor 'centrality/success', and the second factor 'happiness'. Patients with compulsive buying showed the highest scores on the G-MVS. While G-MVS scores among compulsive buyers and medical students were significantly related to compulsive buying scores, the correlation between the G-MVS and the depression measure appeared substantially lower. We did not find any gender differences regarding materialism, neither in the population-based sample nor in the students' or compulsive buyers' samples. However, age was negatively related to G-MVS scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Confirmatory factor analyses suggest a 2-factor model of the G-MVS. Overall, the results indicate the use of the G-MVS as a brief, psychometrically sound, and potentially valid measure for the assessment of material values.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Astrid
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Dirk J M
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Smits
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Claes
authors.forename: Olaf
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Gefeller
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hinz
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Zwaan
keywords: Material Values Scale; compulsive buying; materialism